


hey there stranger

by fireyicegirl



Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: High School AU, M/M, Modern AU, Slow Burn, Theatre AU, also howard is a terrible father, also past pepperony, but we've known that, hop in boys its gonna be a slow burn, there's background stucky but not enough to tag the ship, uhh more tags will be added as i think of them
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-11
Updated: 2018-09-11
Packaged: 2019-07-11 04:50:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15965078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fireyicegirl/pseuds/fireyicegirl
Summary: Theatre was always fun for Tony. It was an escape from reality, not that he'd ever admit that to anyone. Yeah, he butts heads probably too much with their director, but hey, the productions always end up being a fun experience.Until this year.'Cause now, they're doing Shakespeare, and he really pissed off Fury. Oh!Andthere's a very handsome new kid who is Tony's partner on an English project—surprise!—on the same Shakespeare play they're putting on.This will be interesting.





	hey there stranger

“Are you shitting me?” Tony said as he frowned at the paper on the wall.

It was the first day of school, a fresh school year. Though, it was more known to the theatre kids of Shield High as the day the play or the musical of the semester was announced via the signup sheet for auditions, which were often held the following Monday. It had been rumored since the spring play ended that the fall play was going to be a musical, more specifically Oklahoma. So, Tony had spent his entire summer listening to the awful soundtrack and watching performances of it, doing probably too much research on it. 

“It’s not that bad of a show,” Pepper said, standing next to him. 

“We were supposed to do a musical, Pep, not a straight play,” Tony looked over at her. “I listened to Oklahoma all summer for nothing, and now we’re doing Shakespeare.” He fake shuddered in disgust.

“You’re just being dramatic, Shakespeare is fun.”

“Says the girl who reads classical literature in her free time. I mean, who willingly does that to themselves?”

Pepper rolled her eyes and pulled on Tony’s backpack strap to get him moving. “Come on, we’re going to be late for homeroom if you don’t stop insulting my reading preferences.”

“I’m just saying, you’re better off reading something trashy like Fifty Shades of Grey or some shit, you’d probably get more of a kick out of it than Shakespeare.” Tony said as they began to walk to their shared homeroom. 

“Tony,” Pepper said in a warning voice. He just snorted in return and swung an arm over her shoulders.

“I’m just messing with you, no need to give me the voice,” He said as they walked down the hallway. He ignored the stares they were getting. He knew what it probably looked like, like Tony and Pepper had gotten back together. Not to brag, but Tony and Pepper _had_ been a pretty great couple, the entire school had known about them. 

But they had broken up back in April. It was mutual, they worked better as friends. And the entire school had known about the breakup, since they had been _that_ couple that had been together since the middle of sixth grade. It really shocked everyone, except them and their friend group. 

“I’m not giving you the voice,” Pepper retorted, “You’d know if I was giving you the voice.”

“Ya-huh,” Tony said absentmindedly as he looked at the people in the hallway. Students were huddled in groups around lockers, gossiping about whatever the hell you could gossip about on the first day of school, some were looking at him and Pepper, but most of the lot were minding their damned business. 

Tony smirked as he saw Rhodey at his locker, “Rhodes! I hope you didn’t bring your collection of pornographic videos to school again!” He called out, attracting the attention of some students around them.

That managed to startle Rhodey enough that he nearly dropped the books in his arms, then turned to Tony with a glare. “Tones, don’t do that, people are going to believe you.”

“Good morning to you too,” Tony said. “How was your summer, Rhodes?”

“Would’ve been better if I saw you less,” Rhodey said, putting the rest of his things into his locker and shutting it. 

Tony placed a hand over his heard, gasping in dramatic fashion. “That cut deep Rhodey, I thought we were friends.”

“This is exactly why you’re in theatre. You’re always so dramatic,” Rhodey said and Pepper hummed in agreement. 

“You love it though,” Tony said to both of them as they began to make their way to homeroom. 

“Do we?” Rhodey said.

Tony looked to Pepper, and she just shrugged. “That’s it, I’m unfriending you both.”

“You have fun with that.”

They walked into the classroom, Tony finally relinquishing his arm from its spot around Pepper’s shoulder to take his rightful seat at the back of the classroom. Sitting in the back of the classroom meant you could sleep more and get caught less, and Tony slept in class a _lot_.

Pepper took a seat up front, ever the good student. She was one of those students who never missed class—Tony could name numerous times that she came to school sick—and always got the highest grades in the class. AKA the perfect student. Tony sometimes wished he had that same motivation for his own education.

Instead, he had the motivation of his father, who forced him to keep his grades up. It wasn’t hard for Tony to maintain a 4.0 GPA, but it’d be nice if he had some self-motivation instead of his father constantly bashing him about his grades not being high enough and _that_ being his motivation.

But, yeah. Some self-motivation would be nice.

Rhodey sat in the desk next to him as he leaned back in his chair, stretching his arms behind his head. He watched as his classmates piled into the room. When he spotted Steve, he waved him over.

“Look what the cat dragged in,” Tony said as Steve took a seat in front of Rhodey. “What, you don’t want to sit next to your favorite person?”

“Hilarious,” Steve said as he dropped his backpack on the ground. “Did you see the fall play?”

Tony scrunched up his nose, “Yeah, it’s Shakespeare.”

“Shakespeare plays are fun,” Steve said. “I did one back in middle school, I think it was Romeo and Juliet.”

“That was a middle school play. All middle school plays are either complete shit or the best things ever,” Tony pointed out.

“He’s not wrong,” Rhodey said. “Watching them was way worse.”

Tony nodded in agreement. “One time, my dad walked out of mine, just got up and left. Hasn’t been to any of my shows since.”

“Yeah, and then you dragged me to all of your performances,” Rhodey said.

“You loved every single one of them,” Tony said, blowing a kiss at Rhodey, who scrunched up his face in fake disgust. 

The bell rang shortly after that, and the rest of his classmates rushed inside, desperately trying to avoid being late. A few of them received detentions since Mr. Kane was not a teacher known to be easy on his students. Everyone knew you weren’t late to homeroom, especially not if you were unlucky enough to be stuck with Mr. Kane for it.

Apparently, the new kid didn’t know that.

He rushed in five minutes late, after the daily morning announcements and the pledge of allegiance had already finished. Mr. Kane was talking to the class about what he expected from them for the rest of the year at that point.

“I am so sorry I’m so late,” the new kid said, an apologetic look on his face. “I got lost trying to find the classroom.”

“Did it ever occur to you to ask someone in the halls for help?” Mr. Kane asked, his arms crossed. Yikes. Tony felt bad for the new kid, he hadn’t been there all of a minute and was already on Mr. Kane’s bad side. The new kid frowned, as if he were offended by the question—as he should be, Mr. Kane was an asshole—and his whole demeanor changed.

“I’m not sure if you know high schoolers, sir,” the new kid said with snark, “but they’re not the friendliest of people. May I take my seat now Mr. —” He looked at his schedule, “—Kane?” 

Mr. Kane flushed red—with either anger or embarrassment, but probably anger—and said, “Sit down, Mr. —”

“Strange, Stephen Strange,” The new kid—Stephen said as though Mr. Kane should already know, and then looked at the desks. All of them were taken except for the one next to Tony, of course it was the one that was next to Tony.

Tony and Stephen made eye contact for a few seconds before Stephen made his way to the back of the classroom and took his seat next to Tony. Mr. Kane began speaking where he left off, but Tony noticed the glares he kept giving Stephen.

“You sure pissed him off,” Tony whispered to Stephen, who glanced over at Tony.

“He deserved it,” Stephen whispered back. “It seems like he is like that to everyone, am I right?”

“He’s yelled at a guy for sleeping, he’s yelled at a girl once for _breathing_ too loud, whatever the hell that means,” Tony whispered. 

“If someone sleeps in class, then they probably deserved to get yelled at. It’s not good to sleep in class.”

“Listen, I was tired and when I’m tired I sleep. Simple as that,” Tony shrugged.

Stephen looked over at Tony fully, cocking an eyebrow, a slightly amused expression on his face. “It makes sense that it was you.”

“Are you two done?” Mr. Kane asked, and Tony and Stephen’s heads whipped towards him. “I’d like to get on with the syllabus, if that’s alright with you two.”

“Oh, no, we don’t mind,” Tony said. “If you could just wait a few minutes, we are having a conversation here.”

Rhodey snickered while Steve shot Tony a glare that screamed ‘stop’. Mr. Kane glared at Tony, “I’m not dealing with you today, Stark. Get out of my classroom.”

“Oh boy, and I didn’t even have to use my get out of jail free card!” Tony exclaimed, standing up and slinging his backpack over his shoulder. He saw Rhodey out of the corner of his eye shaking his head and putting a hand on his face. Steve was doing something similar, only he was smiling. He saw Pepper glaring at him from the front row, and he was sure he’d get a lecture later that day.

He looked over to Stephen and winked, mouthing, “He’ll be off your back now,” To which Stephen responded by looking slightly shocked.

Tony made his way up to the front of the classroom, giving Mr. Kane a two fingered salute, then left the classroom.

  
  
“We have something to tell you guys,” Steve said in the middle of lunch, glancing over at Bucky with a nervous look on his face. Tony cocked an eyebrow, pausing mid bite while the rest of the table fell silent at Steve’s words.

Steve was silent for a moment, before looking over at Bucky and taking his hand. “Bucky and I are…”

“Dating,” Bucky finished Steve’s sentence with a comforting smile. 

“I’m not surprised, but shit,” Tony said, then Pepper smacked him on the back of his head.

“Tony, shut up. We’re so happy for you two,” Pepper said.

“I agree with Tony,” Thor said from his place beside Bruce. “This is not a surprising thing.”

“Thank you! Someone agrees with me.”

“Don’t get used to it,” Rhodey piped in, shoving a couple fries into his mouth.

“Piss off, Rhodes,” Tony said, flipping his best friend off.

“Hey Tony? Take that and shove it up your—” 

“Who’s shoving what up where? I was gone for five minutes getting some fries and it all goes to shit,” Natasha said, walking up to the table. She took a seat next to Steve and saw his and Bucky’s intertwined hands. “Pay up,” She smirked, holding a hand out to Tony, who grumbled and pulled out his wallet.

“Wait, you two put a bet on us?” Bucky asked.

“I bet before summer,” Tony said, handing Natasha a fifty-dollar bill.

“And I bet _after_ summer,” Natasha smiled, placing the money in her pocket. “Thank you for your business, Stark.”

“Never again, Romanoff.”

“I can’t believe you two bet on when me and Bucky would get together,” Steve said, narrowing his eyes at the two of them.

“It was only a matter of time,” Natasha shrugged, then bumped her arm playfully against Steve’s when he frowned. “Don’t get your knickers in a twist, old man.”

“Just because I listen to old music doesn’t mean I’m an old man.”

“No, but not understanding any kind of slang and complaining when you don’t get it does,” Tony shrugged.

“Tea doesn’t make sense. It’s a beverage that can be drank hot or cold, it doesn’t make sense to associate it with drama,” Steve defended himself.

“One day you’ll understand, grandfather,” Tony said, reaching out and placing his hand on Steve’s. “I promise,” Steve pulled his hand away from Tony’s and glared at him, and Tony just winked in return.

“Did you guys see the play we’re doing this semester?” Natasha asked, opening her soda can with a pop. 

“Please stop reminding me,” Tony said, “This is going to be the worst production yet, just you guys wait. We’ll be saying ‘Macbeth’ so much that someone will fall and break their ankle, or our lead will get sick right before the first performance or—”

“Or nothing will happen because the ‘Macbeth’ curse doesn’t exist,” Pepper said, cutting Tony’s rambling off.

“It does exist,” Tony said, glaring at Pepper. “Back in middle school, some kid said ‘Macbeth’ during our performance of Into the Woods, the junior version since we couldn’t put on the actual production, the kid playing the wolf tripped over a prop and sprained his foot.”

“That was a freak accident,” Pepper said. “You’re just being dramatic.”

“Mark my words, Pep, something’s gonna go wrong.”

Rhodey threw one of his fries at Tony, “Drama king.”

“By the way, Tony, I can’t believe you managed to get yourself kicked out of homeroom on the first day of class,” Pepper said, and she was definitely using the voice this time.

“I knew you’d bring this up,” Tony said, rolling his eyes.

“I just thought you’d stay out of trouble this year is all,” Pepper said, shrugging innocently. 

“No, no, don’t pull that shit on me, don’t try to guilt me into feeling bad,” Tony said as he glared at her.

“I’m not,” Pepper said, her stare challenging Tony’s. 

“Woah, woah, no fighting on the first day,” Steve butted in, his eyes narrowing at the two of them.

“We’re not arguing, Pepper’s just trying to lecture me,” Tony said.

“I’m not lecturing you,” Pepper said, “I’m just saying, you’re only hurting yourself if you start the year off this way. Mr. Kane already hates you, he went on a passive aggressive rant after you left.”

“Look, the kid hadn’t even done anything, and he was yelling at him for no reason. Kane needs to be put in his fucking place sometimes.”

“Keep this up and you won’t be able to be in the play this year,” Natasha butted in calmly, eating some of her fries. Tony knew she was right, he knew they were both right, but Tony was nothing if not stubborn as all hell.

“Can you both stop attacking me for, like, two minutes?” Tony said in exasperated tone.

Pepper’s face softened, and she placed her hand on top of Tony’s. “I’m not trying to attack you, I just don’t want you to get into the trouble you’ve gotten into in the past. I know you don’t want a repeat of freshman year.”

“Yeah, that’s never happening again,” Tony said, remembering exactly what she was talking about. 

“Then you really need to try to not get in trouble anymore today.”

“Fine, fine,” Tony surrendered. “Only because you asked oh so nicely.”

“Thank you,” Pepper said, gently squeezing Tony’s hand.

“You know it’s moments like these we all wonder why you two ever broke up,” Rhodey said, and the rest of the table half laughed, and half muttered in agreement.

Tony sighed, “I was just too handsome for her, she couldn’t take it. Isn’t that right, Pep?”

Pepper laughed, letting go of his hand to throw a fry at him.

“Okay, new rule, no one throws fries at me anymore.”

  
  
It wasn’t until seventh period that anything actually exciting happened. Well, exciting enough to tell anyone about.

Seventh period was English, and it was Tony’s least favorite subject. Which was slightly surprising since he was one of the biggest theatre kids in the school. But, Tony just wasn’t the type of person to just sit around and read books for pleasure. 

Off the stage, he was much more interested in engineering. Taking things apart, seeing what makes them tick, then pulling them back together. He actually made most of the props for the plays the school did, only so they wouldn’t suck ass. Building things also helped keep his mind occupied, because the damned thing liked to run wild sometimes. Everybody wins.

Tony was sat in his seat, back of the classroom as always, stretched out in his seat. The teacher, Mr. Jones, was going over the syllabus he had just passed out. It was the same old shit Tony had heard a million times before, how Mr. Jones will grade assignments, what assignments they’ll have, blah blah blah.

Tony’s attention was elsewhere until Mr. Jones said, “The first text we will be reading this year will be Shakespeare’s ‘Macbeth’. If you don’t already have it, I expect you to have it by Monday.”

Tony’s eyebrows shot up, and he quickly said, “Wait, we’re reading ‘Macbeth’?”

“Thank you for raising your hand, Mr. Stark,” Mr. Jones said sarcastically. “But yes, since it is on our reading list and since I’ve heard that the drama program is putting it on, it seemed like the perfect time to read it.”

Tony rolled his eyes and sank back down in his seat, wondering what he had done to deserve this. First, Shakespeare was hard. Not only hard to read and understand, but hard to act. If you don’t know what the hell the characters are saying, how are you supposed to know act out the lines?

“I’ve decided to do something different this year,” Mr. Jones said, leaning against his desk. He grabbed a piece of paper off it. “I’m going to be assigning you all partners—” the class groaned “—now, now, hear me out. You’re going to be reading The Tragedy of Macbeth with a partner, I’ll assign you what act and what scenes you will need to read for the week, and at the end of the week you two will have to give me a summary of how you two have perceived the reading. Then we’ll discuss what it actually means together as a class.”

“No offense Mr. Jones, but I’d rather break my leg,” Tony said.

“I thought you’d say something like that, so to motivate you all, I will be giving ten points of extra credit to the two who are the closest to what is actually happening in the scene. I’m trusting you all not to cheat and look up the modern translations or anything like that,” Mr. Jones looked directly at Loki, who was a notorious cheater, and he was Thor’s younger brother. Loki only winked at Mr. Jones, who in turn rolled his eyes.

Mr. Jones then began to read off the list of partners he had comprised. Steve and Bucky had obviously been paired up together, as well as Pepper and Natasha, and then—

“Tony Stark and Stephen Strange.”

Tony looked at Stephen, who was sat more towards the front of the classroom. He hadn’t realized Stephen was in the class as well, that probably showed just how much he paid attention. Stephen looked back at him, to which Tony responded by winking at him. Stephen only smiled amusement and shook his head, turning back around in seat.

Mr. Jones finished reading off his list of partners not long after calling Tony and Stephen’s names, and then told the class to get together with their partners and discuss… something. Tony wasn’t exactly sure what the fuck he and Stephen were supposed to discuss.

So, when Stephen came to the back of the room to sit next to Tony, he simply said, “Piss of anymore teachers today?”

Stephen snorted as he took his seat next to Tony. “Luckily, I haven’t, but the day isn’t over yet.”

“That’s what I like to hear,” Tony said. “By the way, never got the chance to properly introduce myself. I’m Tony, Tony Stark.”

“Nice to properly meet you Tony, I’m Stephen Strange.” Tony smirked, “That sure is a _strange_ last name, is it not?”

“Please, that’s not even the worst pun I’ve received concerning my name.”

“No? Not the _strangest_ pun you’ve ever gotten?”

“Still no, but I’m you’ll come up with more soon.”

“That I will, Stephen Strange, just you wait.”

Then the bell rang, signaling the end of class. 

“Damn,” Tony said, gathering his books. “Let’s continue this later?”

“Sure,” Stephen said as he stood up. 

“There’s this coffee shop we could meet at, it serves the best coffee in town. It’s called Marvel’s, over on Baker’s Street. Let’s meet there around four?” Tony said, standing and swinging his backpack over his shoulders. 

Stephen nodded, “I’ll see you there.”

  
  
“Let us rather hold fast the mortal sword, and like good—shit,” Tony muttered to himself, placing the book down, he rubbed his eyes. He had been sitting in Marvel’s Coffee for the past forty-five minutes. It was a habit, he always went there after school to either study, learn lines, or do his homework. Today, he was working on rehearsing the lines, and waiting for Stephen to show up. 

Earlier that day, everyone who had been in last year’s spring drama production had been emailed the lines required for each character’s audition scene. And their director, Nick Fury, always expected them to have their lines memorized for their auditions. Scripts were not allowed. Tony had learned that the hard way freshmen year.

Freshmen year had not been a good year for Tony, at all. But he was better than he was then, and he knew more than he had known, and that’s what mattered.

He was sitting at his favorite booth, which was tucked in the back of the shop where hardly anyone ever sat. It was empty enough that no one would bother him, he always worked better alone. He worked on a lot of things there and had since freshmen year. All of the employees knew him, and he knew all of the employees.

He liked the coffee shop better than his own home, shit, sometimes the place felt more like home than his actual house did. With his parents forever away in another country on “business,” the house was always too quiet, too empty.

Tony sighed, leaning back. He checked his watch, Stephen wasn’t supposed to be there for another ten minutes. He might as well try to learn the stupid fucking lines. Shakespeare was more difficult to memorize than normal scripts, since it used a bunch of words they don’t use now. 

He started again, wanting to get the one scene memorized before tomorrow, “Let us hold fast the mortal sword—” 

“Am I interrupting something?”

“Fuck,” Tony jumped. He looked up at Stephen, who had an amused look on his face. “You scared me, you bastard.

“I hadn’t realized I was going to startle you so much.”

“Well, you did, sit down,” Stephen sat across from Tony, setting his backpack next to him.

“So, _stranger_ ,” Stephen gave Tony an unimpressed look, “where did you live before our lovely old town?”

“Already getting personal?” Stephen quirked an eyebrow. 

“We _are_ going to be spending a lot of time together because of this stupid project, might as well get to know each other,” Tony said, shrugging. “So?”

“I suppose you’re right. I used to live up in California.”

“And you downgraded to this?” Tony gestured around.

Stephen shrugged, “Dad’s job moved us here, he’s a neurosurgeon.”

“I get that, my parents’ work moved us all around the country before my sixth-grade year.”

“Where all did you live?”

“You name it, I’ve probably lived there for a while. England, Germany, Canada, France.”

“That’s an impressive list, and yet you downgraded to this?”

Tony laughed, “It’s easier to stay in one place, rather than move every time my parents need to go somewhere for work.”

“What do your parents do?” Stephen asked.

“Oh, they’re your normal CEO’s of Stark Industries. It’s a weapons company.”

“Hm, that’s interesting. I haven’t heard of them before.”

“Good, you don’t want to. But anyway, let’s get on to this project, shall we?”

“Yes, let’s,” Stephen said, and began to take the things they would need out of his backpack. “I was actually thinking of meeting a few days a week after school to read and interpret the scenes together.”

“I don’t know how that’d work, since I’m going to be in the actual production of ‘Macbeth’.”

“You? In theatre?” Stephen asked incredulously.

“I dabble, yes,” Tony said. “Looks better on college resumes to have something consistent.”

“But theatre? There are multiple other things you could do. Like a club worth your time.”

Tony knew Stephen probably didn’t mean to imply that theatre was a waste of his time—or maybe he was just thinking that was because Stephen was strikingly handsome, and Tony’s bisexual ass couldn’t handle it—but it still stung all the same.

“There’s more to theatre than just acting like a fool,” Tony narrowed his eyes at the other boy. “There’s so much that goes into it, plus everyone in it is like a family. Maybe you should try it before you diss it.”

“No thanks, I’ll stay with my educational extracurriculars.”

“No, no wait. That could work. If you join the theatre production, we’ll have more time to do this damn project.”

Stephen looked hesitant, so Tony quickly said, “You don’t have to act or anything, you could be in tech, ya know, behind the scenes and all that fun shit.”

Tony watched Stephen mull over his offer for a moment. It really would make everything easier for them both, they would both be in the same place at the same time, and they wouldn’t have to work around each other’s schedules. Tony was—kind of—sure that Fury would let them read if he thought they were just studying lines. 

“I’ll think about it,” Stephen finally said.

“Think fast, because auditions and tech sign-ups are on Thursday. Fury doesn’t like people who aren’t one hundred percent sure they want to join theatre. One time, he kicked a tech out of the show for missing a rehearsal.”

“That didn’t help your case.” Stephen pointed out, and Tony just shrugged in return. “It sounds like a big commitment, even for a school project.”

“Just think on it. You won’t hurt my feeling if you say no.”

“I’ll think on it,” Stephen looked at Tony. “But no promises.”

“Promises aren’t meant to be kept anyway. Let’s start this dumb assignment.”

  


**Author's Note:**

> eek it's finally posted! i've been working on this for about a week now and i am so excited for this story. it may or may not be very loosely based on my irl experience in theatre (VERY loosely). it should update regularly, but i'm still trying to choose a specific day that it will be posted! 
> 
> follow me on twitter to keep up with updates n stuff: @starkreactcrs


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